It’s an exciting time for the Citi ThankYou ecosystem, as we’ve recently seen American AAdvantage added as a transfer partner, plus we’ve seen the launch of some new cards.
Continue reading: American AAdvantage Vs. Citi ThankYou Credit Cards: Which Are Better?
Share your questions, experiences, and thoughts below.
Completely unrelated, but the article cited within this Reddit thread has some interesting insights on passenger profitability of the US3
Today is known as “The Glorious Twelfth” in “God’s County”.
The Glorious Twelfth, that is the twelfth day of August, is the start of the Red Grouse shooting season.
God’s County, that is County of Yorkshire, with the real York at its centre.
Ok! I hear you ask, so, what has the Glorious Twelfth got to do with aviation and this website? The Glorious Twelfth has absolutely nothing to do with aviation, however, it does have as much to do with this website as 90% of all the other irrelevant posts to be found herein.
Ben, your website is now being used by a few fake trolls who are making a mockery out of you, your business enterprise and this website. Your security measures are weaker than the Iranian rial, the weakest currency in the world. There is nothing to stop the John Doe’s of this planet from posting under any login name they choose. Impersonating any other legitimate person causing a nuisance to many Profanities are tolerated without a murmur, as is antisemitism, racism, bullying and homophobia too.
Ben, many people looked to this website for inspiration, help and advice on a variety of aviation topics. Not anymore however, many of the long term followers have deserted you. Driven away by the mindless morons who are allowed to post herein unchecked.
Those same numpties will now be free to castigate me for standing in front of them holding this mirror of truth. You are unlikely to take the necessary remedial action necessary to prevent the patients from taking over this lunatic asylum. Your future and that of your family is at risk if only you could grasp that fact Ben.
ENOUGH with the Citi credit card stories. Their new credit cards suck. Plain and simple.
As much as I agree and would want the same, I don't see it happening. The revenue that Ben receives from display ads is tied to aggregate traffic. If Ben requires a log in, aggregate traffic would likely lead to lower aggregate traffic and lower revenue.
This is an example of a tiring comment that I mentioned in a comment to another article. "The cards are not a fit for ME-ME-ME, so they can't possibly be a fit for anyone else." The reader doesn't seem to grasp that Ben is trying to get readers (especially those new to the hobby) to consider various angles relative to their specific circumstances.
If someone doesn't care about tier status (or is able to obtain One World status via another means), Citi's ecosystem can be attractive. 12X on Citi Travel with the Strata Elite -- coupled with the flexibility to transfer those points to AA or any other transfer partner -- is hard to ignore. (I'm not advocating for Citi -- just presenting food for thought.)
If you do not value earning nights at a major hotel brand, the AA Exec Card plus AA Hotels (with even minor AA Gold status) remains the easiest way to earn OWE with AA and earn more miles. AA Exec gets you 20k LP bonus at levels (50k/90k) that accelerate you to PPro/OWE (125k). So now you only need 105k LP.
As an example I have an upcoming 2 night trip in London at a non-chain hotel. Price through AA was ~$875 and through CitiTravel was ~$835 (direct price matched CitiTravel price). So with 12x on Strata Elite you get roughly 10k TY points. Not bad!
Except through AA Hotels you earn, in this case, an additional 11,500 base miles/LPs. Plus if you are in the 20% or 30% bonus with AA (at 60k/100k LP) you get extra LP (I'm currently in the 30% bonus so getting roughly 15k LP). Plus with AA exec card you get 10x miles on the spend (1x base/LP 9x bonus).
So for the extra ~$40, getting 15.875k LP plus over 20k AA miles (8750 through AA Exec plus 11.5k through AA Hotels). That's over 10k miles extra plus over 15k LP for an additional $40. So you are "buying" each mile at 4/10ths of a cent plus getting over 15k LP to qualify for OWE.
Are TY points more valuable than AA miles? Sure. Is this still an incredible deal? Absolutely. If you value TY points at 1.7c that's $170 of value on 10k points. If you value AA miles at 1.5c that's $300 of value for 20k points. Plus 15k LPs! $130 of "extra" value booking with AA Hotels. More than makes up for the extra $40 - that's $90 of 'net' extra value plus whatever value you ascribe to LPs. At least to me!
For "regular" spend would I still take Strata Premier / Strata Regular / DoubleCash trifecta over Elite / AA Exec? Yep.
They can't suck for everybody. For some, absolutely. For everyone, no. Just ask anyone who still has the Citi Prestige Card. And, any answer he gives might be completely irrelevant to your circumstances and objectives . . . or anyone else's circumstances and objectives.
I hear you, but the citi cards have been getting a lot of love on the blog lately....I think Ben is understandably not traveling much right now so the cards are getting a lot of attention.
I'm sorry but SUBs aside, is there really a better points earning combo on the market right now of Strata Premier, Strata Regular and DoubleCash?
DoubleCash – $0 – 2x points on everything
Strata – $0 – 3x select transit, 3x selected bonus category (Fitness Clubs, Select Streaming Services, Live Entertainment, Cosmetic Stores/Barber Shops/Hair Salons, or Pet Supply Stores)
Strata Premier – $95 (but effectively $0 if you use the $100 hotel credit on $500 spend) – 3x direct air, direct hotel, restaurants, supermarkets, EV charging, gas; 10x portal (hotel/car rental/attractions)
Add a DoubleCash for even more value. What ecosystem is really doing it better?
Are their new cards exciting? No. Do I think the Strata Elite makes any sense? No. Did Citi announce its own lounges? No. Is Citi's strategy of converting its HNWI over to its credit card portfolio despite literally giving them away to their HNWI clients going to work? No. Is there incredible points earning value on regular spend? Yep.
I agree that if you're remotely loyal to or geographically captive to AA, Citi has made it really easy to earn AA points at a lower cost than you would pay to obtain a similar amount of United, Southwest, or Delta miles via Chase and Amex, respectively. You don't even need to think about the Strata Elite or AA Executive cards if you don't care about lounge access since you won't earn AA points at a faster rate in most cases with either one of them than you would with the lower-fee cards.
Indeed. And, it makes one wonder where the hate is coming from in the original comment.
I can understand some of what you say Jack, however, I do have reservations.
One troll using multiple logins and misappropriating another’s login details to post falsehoods is hardly cricket. Perhaps you are trying to say, in a very diplomatic manner, that Ben is only too happy for his website and readers/contributors to be violated by the trolls as long as his aggregate traffic is not affected?
An interesting submission John. Thank you for your contribution to my education.
Could one apply for the Citi Thank You card (with no sign up bonus offered) and also apply for the Advantage Card with a signup bonus at some point in the future? Will having the Citi Thank You preclude one from obtaining and earning that bonus?
I would argue that the easiest way to earn loyalty points is to fly. My wife flies frequently on business, and gets somewhere between 5k and 9k roundtrip (she has Executive Platinum status, so I'm sure that helps - it adds 1.2x on top). When I calculated how she earn loyalty points last year, less than 10% of the loyalty points came from spending on her Aviator Red card, and pretty much all her spending was on that card, including the flights. The AA Advantage Executive card helps with the extra 20k loyalty points, but it might not be necessary (or might not be enough). You're probably better off using non-airline Credit Cards to crank out the points (and free trips), and get loyalty (and thus status) the old fashioned way - earn it (with butts in seats).
Thanks for this very useful post, as well as some similarly useful comments it's generated. For various reasons, including generally flying J or F using miles or cash, I don't value airline status much anymore and prioritize accumulating miles and points. So accumulating Citi TY pointsfor conversion to AA miles is very appealing, including through the Citi combo CC approach sketched here.
The one big caveat to all this is what happens to AA's mileage program now that the pool of de facto AA miles out there will significantly increase. If this translates into devaluing AA miles to something as bad as UA or, even worse, DL miles, that could be a very negative game-changer.
"The one big caveat to all this is what happens to AA's mileage program now that the pool of de facto AA miles out there will significantly increase."
I get the anxiety in the community around this but people have to look at the net benefit. You now have a much broader arsenal to accrue AAdvantage miles. The learning curve will not increase ten-fold just because Citi is opening up new opportunities for AA redemptions. And realistically, look, if some 57.5k J or 85k F redemptions have to go up, that's reasonable inflation. Nothing lasts forever and savvy hobbyists should be able to shoulder the incremental increased costs. I do not predict this program becoming SkyPesos any time soon.
Maybe I look at this totally wrong. I have been EXP for the last 4 or 5 years. It is earned thru flying and credit card spend, with CC spend lately being more than thru flying. I try to use my points for international travel, and lately, the non stop flights where I have wanted to go have not been available to book with points. Most of my domestic travel is between ORF and MIA, but most of the time, it is either a very early morning flight ( one I said I would never do now that I am retired but reluctantly take) and a return on a late night flight. Jet Blue will begin to fly ORF-FLL in December, and coach pricing is about the same as AA if you choose their best seats, otherwise lower. I have been fortunate that on most of my flights, I have been upgraded to first, though almost always at the gate or max 24 hours in advance. The 100 hour advance is history. So I am torn in what to do. When I have to pay for international business, I choose whoever has the best price, and it is not usually AA, so I have been getting miles on UA. DL is pretty much a non starter for me. I guess I am venting, but also trying to figure out if I should use my AA card, my Amex Platinum, my UA chase card or apply for new cards. Your comments are very thought provoking.
Additionally, the expanded Citi offerings were covered in The NY Times today and perusing the reader comments, I am not worried about losing out to savvier travelers, especially considering this is the creme of the American readership.
How can these two really be compared? One is giving credit card points and one is giving airline points. The fact that you are even comparing them means I think you are desperate for content. Credit card points are more flexible and generally downgrade less often.
Thank you Ben for this very insightful article. In my own experience, the most lucrative way to earn AA miles and loyalty points is actually booking hotels (ideally with the 20% or 30% bonus for higher AA status tier members) on the AA.com/hotels site. You can rack up a lot of points and loyalty points for relatively little spending with hotels.
The AA executive card gets you 10x points on hotel bookings on the site with 1x on loyalty points per dollar spent; plus the hotel itself gives you base miles (i.e. both points and loyality points). It is sometimes better to buy to separate nights in a hotel, instead of making one booking for 2 nights, in order to maximize the AA points and loyality points.
Of course, if people have a very high level of spending and want to get status this way, that is fine too. I believe the opportunity cost is too high though.
And ultimately, having both an AA credit card and the Citi Strata Premier + Double Cash + Custom Cash would be the optimal way of earning AA miles, which I found very valuable. Whether AA miles are the best currency for everyone is a different question. For my travels, it is.
Sure, if you have $200,000 worth of something to spend on (and $200k sitting around). And I would argue that with that kind of spend, you would be better off using it on all kinds of other signup bonuses (you could easily get over 1 million points for that kind of spend). You're likely only getting 1x on whatever AA card you're using to get loyalty, but you can minimally get 2x ( e.g., on a Venture X card (plus 150k points SUB if you get the business variant)).
As a low level but regular traveler for a long time, the loyalty goal serves me better as it gets me either Gold or Plat instead of nothing. Holding rewards, switching them when the redemption goes down 5 times at no cost and early boarding on Alaska Airlines is extremely useful in my travels.